Transnational Dialogues
European Alternatives
www.transnationaldialogues.eu
<mailto:td at euroalter.com>td at euroalter.com
Ms Stella Tang
The TD Journal 2016 is now out
Transnational Dialogues is a project by European Alternatives
Extract from the Journal's introduction
'Fragments of a Journey' by Luigi Galimberti
<<<
Transnational Dialogues started in 2011,
embarking on a fascinating journey from Europe to
China, then to Brazil, and eventually back to
Europe. The first moves of the journey were with
the relaxed but unpredictable pace of a flâneur.
Translating flâneur into Chinese required a
collective and disproportionate amount of effort,
with unexpected findings; the Chinese translation
of the word suggests the gentleman stroller of
city streets is a 'thug' when exercising his
investigative power in the hutongs of Beijing.
A curious, and each time larger audience gathered
for those first ephemeral discussions.
Competences and perspectives were mixed and
matched. The leisurely stroll became the
relentless procession of a series of Caravans,
which for more than two years followed both old
and new routes, attempting crossings that had
been largely unexplored. The step from China to
Brazil was ambitious, but unavoidable. It was
pushed by the desire to go beyond the limits of
the nation-states that dictate the rules of
politics and economics, to gain a more
comprehensive vision of this globalised world,
and to create and strengthen independent networks
of individuals and organisations in these areas.
The Caravans involved about a hundred young
researchers, practitioners and political
activists from the fields of architecture,
urbanism, design, visual arts, philosophy,
poetry, as well as other fields of work and life.
They exchanged and co-created against a backdrop
of what was rightly perceived as the first cracks
of three fragile utopias: that of Brazil, China
and Europe. The Brazilian economic miracle of
sunny beaches and irresistible sambas quickly
came into question with the protests of June
2013, which dared to ask whose utopia the
politicians and the media were talking about when
a significant proportion of the country's people
could not afford a twenty-cents raise of the bus
fare. The Chinese Dream of a harmonious society,
based on economic liberalism and political
authoritarianism, was also taking its toll on the
lives of those who were cut out from the benefits
of the country's growth, suffering physically and
psychologically for the lack of their civil and
political rights, as the citizens of Hong Kong -
soon to become the stage of the Umbrella Movement
- had experienced.
Finally, in the European Union, short-sightedness
and inadequate bureaucrats and politicians failed
to address the widespread discontent and social
suffering that had been accumulating for years,
leading to what will probably be considered the
most severe political crisis since the end of the
Second World War: Britain refreshed its imperial
nostalgia, Crimea once more became a war stage,
and far right politicians continue to carve their
positions of power by promoting religious and
racial hatred. Returning from our journey, the
Europe we expected to come back to, was changed
irretrievably. In fact, we could no longer find
that Europe. We were left in between spaces,
reduced to fragments dispersed along the global
flux of ideas, ideas that we had opened up, but
were quickly overwhelmed by.
As a last recourse, we shifted our discourse from
utopic political visions, to the reality of the
margins, from the solitary investigation of the
flâneur, to the collective re-organisation of
labour. While in advanced economies today's
younger generation risks ending up poorer than
their parents, in less-developed economies new
forms of (extreme) poverty and exclusion are on
the rise. Despite being largely invisible,
deprived of financial means and, in several
instances, denied their legal rights, individuals
and organisations throughout Brazil, China,
Europe (as indeed all over the world), are
battling for a fairer redistribution of resources
and for the creation of a social environment
based on cooperation and sharing, rather than on
aggressiveness and extortion.
This Journal mirrors the two principal thematic
approaches of the project. The first section,
'Between Crowds and Empires', examines the
polarities of collaborative and sharing
economies, taking into account the different
cultural perspectives from Europe, China and
Brazil. The second section, 'Marginalia', deals
with the inequalities and racialisation of
geopolitics, as well as with the practices of
those groups and individuals that are seeking
niches beyond traditional social structures.
>>>
Texts by Robin Resch, Pedro Victor Brandão,
Felipe Duarte, Sun Siwei, Erik Rodrigues, Chen
Yiming, Margherita D'Andrea and Corrado Gemini,
Indy Johar, Julijana Nicha, Iva âukiç, Noel
Hatch, Man Yu, Ge Fei and Ge Lei, Jota Mombaca
and Luigi Galimberti.
Visual contributions by Berna Reale, Dai Hua and Tobias Zielony.
Edited by Luigi Galimberti.
The Journal is freely available for consultation
and download at
<http://www.transnationaldialogues.eu>www.transnationaldialogues.eu.
Hard copies of the Journal are available for
pick-up in Belém (Casulo Cultural), Beijing
(Goethe-Institut China, I: project space), Berlin
(European Alternatives), Belgrade (Remont
Gallery), Chongqing (Organhaus), Manchester
(CFCCA), Rio de Janeiro (Universidade Nomade),
Rome (Alternative Europee), São Paulo
(Goethe-Institut, Casa Tomada, Casa do Povo) and
Venice (SaLE Docks).
***
TRANSNATIONAL DIALOGUES is a project run by the
non-profit NGO European Alternatives and a
consortium of grassroots NGOs, mid-level
institutions, informal groups, and public
authorities active in the youth, cultural and
creative fields, which researched and developed
innovative models to challenge the precariousness
and marginalisation of younger generations. It
developed around the model of a temporary
transnational community called a 'Nomadic
Residency', which took place in several locations
across Europe (September-October 2015), Brazil
(March 2016) and China (June 2016).
With the support of the Erasmus+ Programme of the
European Union and the Goethe-Institut.